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Friday, January 20, 1978, 9:00 pm, Day 724
I've had a productive afternoon and evening, it seems. I took the bus up from Freetown this morning, and am now going to spend the night at the Paramount chief's house here in Koidu. This afternoon I talked with the chief and also with ABL Abu, Kamiendor's big man in the government, whom happened to be here also. I told them how the project was coming along, and then showed them a copy of the contract agreement, which states each party's responsibilities. Together, we went over each thing that the Kamiendor community is being asked to do or to provide, and they seemed agreeable to it all. I discussed with them the 2000 leones that the chiefdom supposedly had in its account, budjeted for the Kamiendor water supply project, and they assured me that, yes indeed, the money is there, and that, yes, it could be transferred into a bank account in Freetown. That's what I wanted to hear!
Later on that evening the chief had gone out, and Mr.Abu had left also. Then Mr.Musa, the district clerk, whom I had met previously in Kamiendor, came over. Mr.Musa had been the one whom first informed me about the chiefdom's 2000 leones. I discussed it with him, and explained to him what they wanted done with the money. He didn't see any problem about it. He said that he will even write up a letter for the Paramount chief to sign, which would go to the Ministry of Energy and Power, officially informing them that the 2000 leones is available and could be transferred to Freetown. That letter will then make it possible for MEP to advance some of it to this project for the purchase of 150 bags of cement. The cement then, I could hopefully expect up in Kamiendor in about two weeks.
Then, after all this, I sat down and wrote out all of the needed written word descriptions of the Yarya water system design. That design is coming right along.
Monday, January 23, 1978, 11:00 am, Day 727
I have a few setbacks to report about. The first happened while I was on my way back to Kamiendor. I was passing through Koardu, with just 9 miles left to go, when I got a flat tire. It was a fast one. I had to unpack everything, and then took the back wheel off. When I got the tube out, I found a hole that was big enough to put four of my fingersthrough at once. Accompanying it was another hole big enough to put one finger through, plus a few small holes. I looked at the tire and found a big nail sticking in it. I checked my patches and found that I just had enough to cover everything. The big hole was really a challenge, as it meant patching up one slit that was about 7 inches long. There was nothing else that I could do but start walking, so I figured that I had to try.
After about two hours of working with it, plugging up all of the leaks and putting everything back together, I was ready to go again. I found that I still had a slow leak, so I just pumped it up and took off. After about two miles I had to stop and pump it up again. I was almost done pumping, when suddenly something popped, and the tire gave out a sigh. I was out of patches and out of patience, so I decided to start walking. I left my motorcycle in the next village, and then walked the last 6 miles on into Kamiendor. Luckily, I had a new tube stored there, so the next day I walked the 6 miles back to fix my motorcycle. An hour later it was fixed and I was on my way again. So far the tire is still holding its air, which is good, as I don't have any more patches up here.
The second setback is that John Gander, the man from CUSO who was supposed to come and visit, never showed up. If he did come while I was busy messing with my motorcycle, then he never introduced himself to anyone, or asked for me, or asked any questions about anything, because no one up here has seen him. He was positive that he was coming, just last week.
The third setback is that yesterday I happened to see the wooden slats, that go with the mortar block making machine, go by in a LandRover on their way back to Koidu. We were planning to use the block machine for making the blocks for the water system, but now it looks like we have to dig up some wooden slats somewhere. It turns out that the man owns the machine, but that he was just renting the wooden slats.
Wednesday, January 25, 1978, 10:00 pm, Day 729
I haven't gotten out to do any actual physical work in quite awhile now. These last few days I have kept busy with design work. Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning I finished up the design for the Sagbawa bridge that I was doing. It is to have two 10 foot spans, two abutments with wingwalls, and one center support 8 foot high. Altogether, I came up with it costing 2500 leones for transport and materials.
Starting yesterday afternoon, I've been working on redoing and finishing up all of the details and drawings for the Kamiendor design. This should have been done a long time ago, but I guess that it is better late than never. So far, it is all going quickly, and I am getting good results. I hope that I can get everything done quickly and that I don't get bogged down on up the line. I don't really know just how much has to be done until I finish. I just keep going until I think that I have everything that will be needed.
Sunday, January 29, 1978, 10:00 pm, Day 733
Each day now, since this last time, I have spent working on the Kamiendor design. I've now just about finished drawing up the new plans. To arrive at these new plans though, I first had to go back and redesign each part. I've averaged about one day each. That is, one day for the pump house, one day for the well, one day for the tank, etc. At the same time, I am also calculating how much materials will be needed for each part, and I am listing these clearly on the plans themselves. That is good, because then they won't get misplaced when it would again be time to recheck just how many bags of cement will be needed for the tank foundation, for example.
I haven't gotten bogged down yet, but I can see that I still have a few days full of paperwork left ahead of me. I still have to copy over all of the design calculations nice and neatly. Also, I have to draw up all of the pipe connections so as to figure out exactly what pipe fittings are needed and where they are to go. Then, I still need to work up a new work schedule, showing in what order things are to be done, how long it will take, what materials are needed when, and what skilled labor and transportation will be needed at what times.
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